Wherever there is money, there will be castles built. I found 300 castles in the United States alone! But it's the older castles with a rich history that I want to visit. You know about Buckingham Palace, the Vatican Palace, and the Forbidden City, and here are some other fascinating castles you may not be familiar with. 1. Predjamski Predjamski Castle in Slovenia is built into the entrance of a cave system that runs through the mountain, making it a seige-proof fortress. It was first constructed... READ ON

I love the concept of combining the old and the new. Quilting is an oh-so-useful craft that goes back hundreds of years. Recycling scraps of fabric to make a sturdy bedcover has been elevated to an art form. It seems anachronistic at first glance, but 8-bit pixelated arcade game icons lend themselves well to the design of patchwork quilts. 1. Galaga Quilt Emily at Carolina Patchworks made this quilt depicting the arcade game Galaga. It's for sale at Etsy. 2. Quiltbert Lenore at Evil Mad... READ ON

The legend of Santa Claus goes way back, and branches off in many directions. But he has only used reindeer to pull his sleigh full of toys for the past 200 years or so... or at least that's as far back as the research goes. This article at Cryptozoology hints at even earlier beginnings. The veracity of this research is documented at the bottom of the page, but it's an interesting read. The true story of how Santa harnessed his reindeer is comparatively recent. In 1821, William Gilley... READ ON

In the past week, the discoveries of two very different and amazing underground temples were in the news. But they are not the only ones. 1. The Lupercale Just last week, the first pictures of a recently-discovered underground grotto in Rome were released. The chamber is 26 feet high and 24 feet in diameter. The discovery was made about a year ago as workers were repairing the remains of Emperor Augustus' palace on the Palatine, a hill in Rome. Archaeologists believe it is the original Lupercale, the... READ ON